YouTube is full of videos of drones crashing or running off course, and the Federal Aviation Administration has banned commercial drones in the U.S. while it figures out how to regulate them. Yet interest in the flying machines remains high.

Skydio Inc. is the latest drone technology startup to emerge, raising $3 million for software that its co-founders say should be able to keep flying drones on track. The seed funding is led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Accel Partners also participating in the round. Read More »

GE Ventures is collaborating with San Francisco-based startup Airware, which is building hardware, software and services for commercial drones, and has invested an undisclosed amount of funding in the company.

GE views drones as “flying sensors,” said GE Ventures Managing Director Alex Tepper, and is looking at roles for drones in its various field services businesses. These include oil and gas, transportation, power and wind. Read More »

Real estate crowdfunding platform Fundrise, the most well-financed of a new crop of startups pooling investors to back real estate projects, has added another $3.6 million to its Series A funding round, taking total funding to $38 million. Read More »

What does an executive who has worked at giant organizations–Microsoft Corp., the U.S. government and McKinsey–do for his next act?

Jump into startup investing, of course.

Kurt DelBene, most recently the fix-it man for Healthcare.gov, is joining Seattle venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group as a venture partner, Madrona said Wednesday. The firm, which focuses on young startups in the Pacific Northwest, raised a $300 millon fund, its fifth, in 2012. Read More »

Socialmentum LLC, a Kansas City startup doing business as Mindmixer, has raised $17 million to help civic offices and school districts connect with their constituents online.

Mindmixer was built to meet the needs of civic offices that have to comply with certain regulations around gathering information, keeping records of input from local community members, and making it available as open data to the public. Read More »

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday told a tech industry conference in San Francisco that new technologies were helping to drive a U.S. economic recovery but that not enough people were sharing in the gains.

She frequently praised Silicon Valley in the well-received speech, which ended with a standing ovation from the several hundred attendees. Read More »

Code for America, a non-profit that’s trying to introduce modern computing techniques into the government, announced a new class of startups for its San Francisco accelerator. These are companies selected for their potential to help governments save money, eliminate inefficiencies and make government services easier for citizens to find and use.

The five startups were chosen from a pool of 112 applicants and have enough interest from customers that they look like viable businesses, according to accelerator manager Dharmishta Rood.

“The main goal is to grow the civic tech ecosystem here. We’re interested in startups that are having an impact,” Ms. Rood said. Read More »

It’s not every day that the U.S. Supreme Court plays a major role in the fate of a startup, but that’s what happened today.

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia is leaves the U.S. Supreme Court after oral arguments April 22 in Washington. The court ruled Wednesday against the startup, siding with broadcasters suing the company for taking over-the-air broadcast signals and sending them over the Internet.

America is still the world leader in creating new medical technologies that have the potential to save lives. So why is it so tough for the entrepreneurs and investors behind these new products to make a living here?

One reason, according to venture capitalists, is long, costly delays before getting new treatments to market, in some cases caused by health insurers dragging their feet when it comes to agreeing to reimburse doctors for using new medical products.

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Produced by the editors of Dow Jones VentureWire, Venture Capital Dispatch tracks the fast-moving developments at the intersection of high-tech innovation and venture capital finance. Featuring the VentureWire reporting team in the Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and Shanghai tech centers, Venture Capital Dispatch provides insight into the newest start-ups and latest trends in venture capital investing. Write us at VCdispatch@dowjones.com. For more information on Dow Jones products covering venture capital and other financial markets, go to http://pevc.dowjones.com.